Josh Groban Says Doing Live! With Kelly Ripa Is More Fun Than Many Things He’s Done in the Past

Photos:Josh Groban Says Doing Live! With Kelly Ripa Is More Fun Than Many Things He’s Done in the Past

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Josh Groban

By Larry Busacca/Getty Images.

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Elvis Costello, Jake Gyllenhaal, Josh Groban, Tina Fey, and Jimmy Fallon took to the Lincoln Center stage Monday night at the Celebration of Paul Newman’s Dream, a benefit for the late actor’s Hole in the Wall Camps. Paul Simon thrilled the crowd with an acoustic rendition of “Sounds of Silence,” and Trisha Yearwood accompanied a group of campers in a song of their choosing, Miley Cyrus’s “Climb.”

Pre-show, Groban talked about his budding acting career, playing opposite Emma Stone in last summer’s Crazy Stupid Love. “When it comes to the acting stuff, I like to show up for a couple days and kind of be outrageous and silly, and go back to my day job,” Groban told Vanity Fair. “So it was a perfect thing. I got to play a real D-bag lawyer, and comb my hair really awfully and kiss Emma Stone, so it was a really wonderful day on set.” Next, the singer will appear in Coffee Town, in which he plays “a disgruntled coffee barista who secretly has a rock band that really sucks, so he hates everybody.”

Recently, Groban has spent a few mornings co-hosting Live! With Kelly Ripa, and says the experience has been a blast: “When they asked me to do it, I was kind of skeptical myself on how it would go. She makes it so easy, and we’ve just had a really wonderful friendship and a great chemistry, so it’s been a lot of fun to wake up early for,” he said.

How does he keep up with all the pop culture they cover on the morning talkfest? “I’m addicted to the Internet, really,” Groban admitted. “The honest-to-goodness answer is that Twitter tells me everything, and I have calluses on my fingers from all the mouse-clicking,” he said, laughing.

Would Groban ever consider a long-term talk-show hosting gig? “Music is so 100 percent for me that the idea of giving that up in any way, shape, or form would be terrifying to me,” he said. “That said, I’ve had more fun doing it than many things I’ve done in the past—it was a great time. So yeah, maybe, you never know.”

Meanwhile, Yearwood talked about her first-time experience hosting her own Food Network show, which starts April 14. “I’ve been in front of the camera a lot as a singer, but as a talk-show host, it’s different. I had to really think about how I’m being filmed, and to smile and to try to really make the people that are watching feel like I’m talking to them,” the country-music star said.

Yearwood’s superstar husband, Garth Brooks, does not appear on the show, but might if there’s a second season. “If we do more, I’ll probably drag him in for an episode or two,” Yearwood told us, laughing. Apparently he’s no slouch in the kitchen: “He really takes more chances in the kitchen than I do. I’m sort of ‘here’s how grandma made it, here’s how mamma made it, here’s how I’m making it,’” she told us. “And he’ll come in and go, ‘Why don’t you put tortellini in that?’ And I’m like, ‘No!’ And then I do, and it’s great,” she said. “But I’ll deny I said it.”